Finding Poetry in Beef
Merrill Shindler
Posted: March 10, 2010
LOS ANGELES-Dario Cecchini, the Italian Maestro of Meat immortalized by Bill Buford in his book Heat, loves to recite poetry. Or to be more specific, he recites whole cantos from Dante's Inferno, with much movement of the arms and a voice that rises and falls like tides of the Mediterranean. He especially loves the Fifth Canto, which he calls "the Canto of Love, the most passionate of all the cantos in the Inferno, where he tells the tragic tale of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, and their doomed love."
For Cecchini, poetry and beef have a common denominator-they're both based on passion. It's passion he demonstrates to locals and pilgrims who flock to Antica Macelleria Cecchini, his small butcher shop in Panzano in the Chianti region of Tuscany, and to his three whimsically named restaurants-his upscale burger place, MacDario, which turns into his steak-only restaurant, Officina della Bistecca, on weekends, and Solo Ciccia, which translates as "Only Meat."
In December, Cecchini was in Los Angeles with his longtime fiancée and translator Kim Wicks, visiting friends who threw a Festa del Pastrami at the Broadway Deli in his honor. He was heading off to Monterey Park on the eastern edge of downtown Los Angeles for a lunch of dim sum at NBC Seafood. But Cecchini always has time to explain his passions. Which he did seated next to a bocce court at a modernist home just down the street from where OJ Simpson used to live. In Los Angeles, contradictions are everywhere.
Food Arts: How would the beef eaten by Dante differ from the beef we eat today?
Dario Cecchini: Dante would have had great respect for the beef he was eating. He would have used fire to do his cooking. He tells tales of passion. And passion needs fire. So, he would have eaten good red beef, roasted in the coals of his fire. It would probably have been leaner than the meat we eat today. I believe in the time of Dante there was more respect for using every part of the animal, for nothing could be wasted. As a butcher for 35 years, I feel the same respect for the animal, using every part possible. And always with romance and harmony. It's all about convivio, the joy of sitting together with food. As Brillat-Savarin said, "When you have guests under your roof, you serve not just good food-you are responsible for their happiness as well." That's why I recite Dante. So we know we are all together. And really, I prefer Hell to Paradise. There are too many Puritans in Paradise. They won't enjoy the way I grill my beef.
FA: Did you grow up on beef?
DC: I grew up in a poor family-a family of simple butchers. The first time I tasted a T-bone steak was for my 18th birthday. At home, we ate the parts that people didn't want-the innards, the knees, the lungs. These are wonderfully flavored parts, but people have forgotten them. I opened a restaurant so I could serve cuts people aren't asking for anymore, parts they've forgotten. We make Palermo's most popular dish, which is made with beef knees. It's not until they've tasted how good the dish is that they have an illumination, when I explain it's beef knees. They can't believe it.
FA: Could you have the same passion for fish that you have for beef?
DC: I have a friend in Los Angeles named Mori, at Sushi Mori. He works with fish like I work with beef. His knives sing when he's cutting fish, like my knives sing when I'm cutting beef. And it's a good death for a fish to be turned into sashimi by Mori. I watch him sharpening his knives, I see what I feel in my shop. It's all about the passion. The passion is in the artisan, not in the beef or the fish. I could feel the same passion growing tomato plants. I need to feel the world by using my hands. I use my heart in everything I do. My heart is what matters the most.
FA: You are the king of Panzano. Will you open butcher shops anywhere else?
DC: My idea is not to open a chain of butcher shops and become richer. I would like to pass on my knowledge to a new generation of butchers. That an animal is not just made up of filet mignon. There are two butcher shops in my town, a town of just a thousand persons. There are 20 wine estates that make wonderful olive oil as well. My idea is to make my small town of Panzano into a school-a school where the students are part of the community and are put to work making bread, making cheese, making food. It's in their hands. It's the best way to learn. They become part of the circle of life.
FA: And what would you like to have as the last taste on your lips before you depart this life to meet Dante?
DC: I think Dante will be very angry with me. He will ask what I have done to his poetry, who I think I am to recite his cantos the way I do? But the last taste...no one has ever asked me that before. I think-no, I know. It is the flavor of a kiss. [He turns to Kim, who has been doing translation.] It is the flavor of your kiss...
